Hilton London Heathrow Terminal 5

We stayed one night here before our holiday and left the car while we were away. We had stayed here a year before and been given a room with a bath, despite requesting an accessible one then found out later that they do have rooms with wet-room style bathrooms so we requested one of those. On reaching the room we realised it was one with a bath so we headed back to reception where they were most perplexed as their system said the room did not have a bath. We assured them it did so were allocated another room which did indeed have a wet-room, with seat, grab bars etc although the room still had a very low swivel armchair which looked difficult for anyone to use, never mind someone with restricted mobility!

We had eaten here before and were again joined by my brother who lives nearby, so sampled quite a few menu dishes between us but chose from the higher end of the menu as some of the more pubby items had disappointed last time. The food was great if pricey but the service was desperately slow even though the place was not that busy. Breakfast was fine with plenty of choice. Rubbish croissants but good sausages and bacon but apparently tinned mushrooms.

We ended up staying the night at the end of our holiday – the plan had been to retrieve the car then head off to a country pub which I had carefully checked out for accessibility and was looking forward to, but the car was making horrendous noises so it was a case of booking in at the Hilton again (we specified the room-number. Bet they don’t get that very often!) and calling the AA. This time we ate at Mr Todiwalah’s Kitchen and oh, boy, was that a good decision! Gorgeous food, excellent staff, good atmosphere and prompt service – the AA fortunately only rang back after we’d finished eating! Car was sorted before check-out time the next day. Their computer system was having problems which had meant not being able to open the min-bar the previous day and meant they couldn’t give us a receipt, but this was made up for by them e-mailing it to us at least three times!

The whole hotel is very accessible, as long as you get the right room and I like the way the staff took it in their stride that I was using a scooter. An airport must get all sorts of people all the time, and it should be the norm  anyway that people don’t make a difference, but it is still novel enough to be pleasant when it happens!

http://www3.hilton.com/en/hotels/united-kingdom/hilton-london-heathrow-airport-terminal-5-LHRATHI/index.html

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Hilton London Heathrow Airport Terminal 5

We stayed one night here before our flight to Spain last year in what was supposed to be an accessible room – it did have grab rails and emergency call buttons so was obviously supposed to be a disabled-friendly room but it had an over-bath shower which wasn’t very helpful. I contacted the company and they have apologised and said they do have rooms with walk-in showers, so I wish we had asked to change rooms! As we were just there one night, we decided to stay there and make the best of it. Other features such as a low swiveling arm chair made it un-userfriendly too. It would be so easy to get it right, you would think such a huge company would try a bit harder. The food in the restaurant was patchy (I think I chose better than my companions!), breakfast was good the disabled parking spaces were very near the entrance and staff were friendly so a perfectly good place to stop before catching a flight, in fact we’re staying there again this year so I’ll report back on whether we get a more easy-to-use room!